Is There a New Gulag in North Korea?

An image from Curtis Melvin’s Google Earth file shows the potentially new prison camp on the left (west) side of the far larger — and well-known — Camp 14.

Has North Korea built another gulag?

The possibility has been raised by the sharpest of the eagle-eyed students of satellite images and maps who look for changes in the closed-off country, Curtis Melvin, who detailed his findings this weekend on his blog.

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First off, Mr. Melvin notes that his observation is completely speculative.

When Google Earth uploaded new images of North Korea on Friday, Mr. Melvin, who we first profiled in 2009, went through his normal practice of updating his file of places and sites.

The latest release of images on Google Earth included the prison camp that became internationally famous in the past year – Camp 14, which was the home of the only known defector to have been born in a prison camp, Shin Dong-hyuk. His story was skillfully told by journalist Blaine Harden in the book “Escape From Camp 14” last year.

Next to one of the borders of Camp 14, Mr. Melvin found a new, uninterrupted line of fencing and traced it in a circle. It may be an addition to the existing camp, or a new camp, or a compound of a different nature that must somehow be closed off.

Mr. Melvin’s Google Earth file is a collective effort with others who have visited North Korea and relayed to him their observations for datapoints. It is one of the most compelling (and time-sucking) ways to learn about what’s inside North Korea and how it is changing.

Through the years, for instance, Mr. Melvin has been able to use changes in the satellite images to show how public markets have sprung up in towns and cities around North Korea.

He’s also weighed in on one of the mysteries that’s been batted around in the past few months by North Korea watchers – whether or not it closed a gulag called Camp 22 up near the China border. Some say yes. And others no.

Counting Camps 14 and 22 but not Mr. Melvin’s discovery, there are six massive prison camps in the remote, mountain valleys of North Korea, some with circumferences that are greater than those of major American cities. Analysts believe the camps hold 100,000 to 200,000 people, including many who committed no crime other than to be related to someone perceived to be an enemy of the country’s authoritarian regime.